


Restorations

by APgeeksout



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s02e02 Everybody Loves a Clown, Episode: s02e03 Bloodlust, Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-22 22:30:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/615073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout





	Restorations

Sunset has snuck up on him again.  The whole sky is the soft peach-pink of a really classy girl’s slip, except for the thin line of bruise purple on the horizon that will have taken over by the time he gets the work lights set up.

He rubs his knuckles with a rag that he notices a little too late is grimier than his hands were to start with, and walks a slow circuit around the car. Her chrome practically glows in the soft light, and he knows that if reached out to touch her planes and angles he’d still feel the heat of the day in the smooth surfaces of her body. 

She’s almost finished. So close that, from a distance, anyone who didn’t know her would think she’s already whole again.   

He chokes down the urge to rip and smash and break apart until he has to start all over again. He’s still wringing the itch to destroy something out of his fingers when the crunch of sneakers on gravel carries to him. 

Sam is coming to him, long stride slowing as he gets closer, hesitant like he’s never been with Dean before.  It hurts to see the wariness in the set of Sam’s shoulders, the cautiousness with which he’s been choosing his words since that night with the crowbar.  But fuck if _everything_ doesn’t hurt these days, and at least he knows how to keep this Sam at bay, stop him from cracking his shell of “I’m fine” and drowning them both in the slurry of secrets and anger and loss that keeps pooling in his chest.   

“Hey, she’s looking good,” Sam calls as he closes the last few yards between them. He sets part of a six pack in the gravel next to the tool boxes and comes to stand next to him. Up close, Dean notices his brother is actually kind of filthy. 

His t-shirt is dark with sweat, and there’s thick, stale dust clinging to his clothes. It’s even streaked across his forehead, one of his cheeks, where he’s spent all day absentmindedly brushing unruly bangs out of his eyes with less-than-clean hands. 

Kid needs a haircut, bad. Damp curls stick to the back of his neck, twist out from his head at angles that make Dean’s chest tight with equal parts hilarity and affection, even though he’s too tired to act on either.

It’s been a long moment since Sam spoke, and when his little brother turns to study him, face all soft concern that he can’t afford to let touch him, Dean recognizes that he probably should have responded. He’s got to go through the motions better than this. 

As the day fades around them, he can see that Sam’s eyes are red.  He tells himself that’s down to the dust, too.  Nothing Sam needs him to respond to or take care of.  Nothing that should make his heart clutch like this. 

“Been hunting dust bunnies under Bobby’s bed again?” he asks, realizing as his voice creaks that without Sam coming to check up on him every little bit, this is the first time he’s used it today. 

Sam brushes a hand down the front of his shirt, dislodging some of the grit, and smiles wearily. “Worse. The attic.” He digs into his pocket and holds out his loosely-closed fist. “I was hunting down these.”

He holds out his own hand to take Sam’s offering. There’s a plastic-y plinking sound, and he finds himself with a palm full of primary colors. Little geometric blocks with the sharp corners worn dull through years of use, snapped together and apart to build the walls of a thousand castles to be laid siege to and jails to be broken out of and bunkers to be stormed and little houses to protect. 

A noise escapes him. Something Sam might be willing to pretend is a chuckle if he backs it up with the right patter here. 

“You remember these?” Sam had been five, maybe six, when Dean lost the LEGOs to the vents in the Impala’s dash.

Sam huffs out a quiet, wet laugh. “Course I do. Dad bitched about the noise for a week. Then, all of a sudden, he thought it was funny.” 

Sam stops, searches his face like he’s looking for permission to talk about Dad, and he swallows hard as the need to break something claws its way around the inside of his ribcage again.  “I didn’t figure out ‘til years later that he was never really mad about the car, just stressed over whatever hunt he was working.” 

They’re both quiet for a while. Dean loses track of how long they stand there while he worries the toys around in his palm and the last strip of orange disappears behind a far-off line of wrecks, leaving the stars behind to keep them company.

“I knew Bobby had a bunch of our kid stuff still hanging around.” Sam offers into the darkness. “I thought I could help you make things the way they used to be again.”  

He can’t say anything, just walks over the heavy boxes of wrenches and sockets and other useful bits of steel and roots through them one-handed until his fingers close around the object he dropped inside weeks ago. He hands it to Sam and a moment later hears the unsteady breath that means his brother has recognized the lidded metal cup, the commando stationed permanently inside, knows it’s waiting to be snapped back into its slot in her driver’s side backdoor.     

He backtracks a few paces and snags the beer Sam carried out earlier, condensation on the green glass catching the light from the stars and Bobby’s back porch. He starts moving toward the car, uses his shoulder to nudge Sam along with him as he passes. 

The doors are different, but the mournful creaking the replacements open with still sounds like home. He sits sideways in the driver’s seat, legs stretched out the open door, and feels the subtle shift in her frame when Sam does the same in the backseat. 

He hasn’t reconnected the interior lights, yet, so they put their missing pieces back in place by starlight and by touch. When they’re finished, he opens a bottle for each of them and hands Sam’s into the backseat. 

“Guess I should’ve grabbed a cooler, too.” Sam’s been out here with him for awhile, long enough that the beer’s gone a little warm.

He feels the solid pressure of his huge little brother leaning against the other side of his seat. He hooks his arm over the seat back and, as expected, finds Sam’s head canted against the back of the headrest. He rests his hand on Sam’s tangled mop and takes a slow sip, lets his heart pound painfully for a few beats before he whispers his reply.

“It’s okay, Sammy.  I think we’ll survive.”   


End file.
